While the story hasn’t been getting much play in China, one recent report in the Chinese media (here in Chinese) adds to the debate about the root of the problem.

The report quotes Xu Luoyi, head of the National Building Materials Industrial Technology Supervisory Research Center, extensively as defending the quality of Chinese drywall. He notes that there haven’t been reports of people suffering negative health impacts from Chinese-made drywall in any places where it has been used, either inside or outside of China. Xu said the problems could also be attributed to environmental factors such as climate.

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Xu also said that Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin Co., one of the Chinese drywall manufacturers named in a recent lawsuit brought by U.S. home builder Lennar, supplied drywall to 75% of the construction projects for the Beijing Olympics, including the iconic Bird’s Nest and Water Cube, as well as for many other major projects such as Mao Zedong’s mausoleum and the National Theater in Beijing and Hong Kong Disneyland.

The issue is also portrayed as one of trade protectionism. Chinese drywall imports to the U.S. took off in 2006, when the housing boom and post-Hurricane Katrina reconstruction in the South fueled demand for building materials, said Xu.

China exported a combined total of over a million tons of drywall to countries around the world in 2006 and 2007. “It’s worth considering why this problem has only emerged in the United States,” said Xu. “The U.S. credit crisis has caused the real estate market to collapse, and as a result domestic drywall manufacturers have seen their sales suffer and their product is relatively expensive compared to the Chinese-made drywall, so we should also consider these issues.”

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